Student rocket launch team wins NASA competition
USU’s student rocket launch team won NASA’s national student rocket launch competition in Huntsville, Ala., in April. USU was one of nine universities selected by NASA as a highly competitive school to participate in this competition at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
This year was the first time USU has been selected to participate in this competition. The launch team won Best Documentation and Presentation, Best Payload Design and Best Team Spirit, said Shannon Eilers, launch team adviser and chief engineer.
One thing that strengthened the team was the variety of different engineers that were involved; each had knowledge in a different area of expertise to contribute, said Shane Robinson, launch team member. The team’s idea and design reports were very unique and sound, which made an immense difference in the outcome, Eilers said.
“The competition objective was to be the team to design and build a rocket that could get closest to exactly one mile,” Eilers said.
What set USU apart is the fact that other schools went to the competition with just the hope that their rocket would reach exactly one mile but already knew we had a great advantage with our rocket would because of our design, Robinson said. We developed a simulator to predict how the rocket would behave and conducted tests, he said. We then put a computer on the rocket to predict how high it would go; if it went too high, the built-in air breaks or flaps that we made would help slow the rocket down to reach exactly the mile, he said.
“It was enormously gratifying to have a successful launch,” Robinson said.
This year’s success was in large part because of the dedication of our advisor to the project and how hard he worked for the team, Robinson said. He was the driving force of the team, he said.
Eilers said the team had to drive the rocket to the competition and, upon arriving, were able to speak with other launch teams and observe the different rocket designs.
“It was fun to see the Marshall Space Flight Center and to see the other schools participating in the competition,” Robinson, said.
Something that could be improved upon for next year would be adding an attitude control which would make the rocket go straight on the way up, getting rid of any curve, Eilers said.
“All of the students on the team had the opportunity to have a real engineering job which will definitely give them an advantage in the work force,” Eilers said. “This experience makes apparent the great opportunities the engineering department at USU has available.”
–monica.swapp@aggiemail.usu.edu